Monday, March 19, 2012

It is an obscure, yet important, fact that Vikings preferred the outskirts of major cities to the cities themselves. Indeed, some historians argue that many Vikings would rather live in these crude "suburbs" than their beloved longships, and only agreed to leave their cottages to maintain honor, to gather riches, and to quench an egregious bloodlust that no mere slaying of squirrels, chipmunks, and other common vermin could satisfy.

Recently unearthed documents have confirmed that - while many Vikings loved their cottages -they often lamented the need to maintain the property, which sapped valuable rape, maim, and/or pillage time. So, in an early effort to multi-task, Viking chieftains would have their men practice hurling newly sharpened battleaxes close to the ground, which would trim the blades to an acceptable length.

This practice continued until the Norse learned to domesticate goats, at which time the goats were trained to hurl the axes.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Sometime in the middle 1000’s, donning the pelt of a recently murdered animal for warmth began to be referred to, within certain Viking circles, as, “So 9th century.”

In turn, these Nordic fashionistas developed a new form of clothing design that required minimal hand-to-hand combat with the wild inhabitants of the frozen tundra: knitting. While blankets were certainly the easiest and most efficient item to produce in the earliest days of the craft, many Vikings soon developed a penchant for knitting colorful sweaters for themselves and their clan.

Recent archaeological findings have revealed that design-oriented Vikings likely used the horns of their Berserker helmets as crude but effective crochet hooks, while even more recent archaeological findings have revealed that the yarn with which to knit the sweaters was likely purchased at the nearest JoAnn Fabric.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Though oft overlooked by scholars, Vikings were voracious consumers of print media. In fact, the halcyon image of an American morning -- a young boy, peddling through the neighborhood, tossing the morning paper onto the porches of hardworking, American families -- was first brought into vogue by the Vikings, who used a similar, end-over-end heave to impale their battleaxes into the skulls of charging enemy combatants.

What’s more, Vikings are credited with discovering the intrinsic value in the flammability of newspapers. Finding The New York Times to be too left-leaning in their politics, early Viking tribes took to burning the “Opinion” section of the paper each day, only to discover that doing so allowed for freshly-chopped timber to ignite more quickly, and to burn more reliably through the cold, unforgiving Nordic nights.

Viking mouthwash use would have been remarkably similar to the act we know and love today, with a few minor - yet important - caveats:

1) Vikings would use only mint or original Listerine. No less harsh citrus flavors or lesser name brands.

2) Vikings would refuse to "swish" anything round in their mouths. Instead, the user's head would be violently shaken from side to side - as if he had just used his teeth to rip off the ear of an enemy.

3) In the absence of mead, mouthwash could occasionally be imbibed.

The rest is identical to our current methods, excepting of course the use of skullcups.